A Quick Summary of the October 2019 Power Platform Licensing Changes

Gayan Perera, 01 August 2019

Microsoft announced a number of licensing changes to the Power Platform during Inspire 2019. These changes will take affect on the 1st of October 2019. Existing customers will be able to transition while the old Power Platform licensing plans are being grandfathered and retired.

I won’t be able to outline and articulate everything clearly in this blog post but will summarize couple of important things. The official blog post is here feel free to ask questions, Microsoft are very good at responding and taking feedback.

“Plan” licenses are going away, replaced with per user and per app models. For example, Customer Engagement Plan will no longer be available for purchase. Instead, you’ll be purchasing a “Base” license per user at a reduced price of USD 95 then each module you want to add will be called an “Attach” license at USD 20.

So, if you have 10 users using Sales, Customer Service & Feld Service, you’ll pay USD 1,350 per month. How is this calculated?

10x base licenses = 10 * USD 95 = USD 950.
10x attach licenses for customer service = 10 * USD 20 = USD 200.
10x attach licenses for field service = 10 * USD 20 = USD 200.
Total: 950 + 200 + 200 = USD 1,350.

The old “Customer Engagement Plan” license which gave users access to the entire Dynamics 365 CRM system for USD 115 will become USD 135+ (95 + 20 + 20 + other attach licenses). A $20+ increase. This is good! Why? Because we want Microsoft to stay in business so they can keep doing what they are doing. They have to keep improving the Power Platform so that customers can do things better and faster…

 
Per User and Per App models: There are two new options, per App and per User.

An “App” is defined as a PowerApps Portal PLUS two Apps (Model Driven App and/or Canvas App). Pricing is USD 10 per app with a minimum of 30 users. This means at a minimum you’ll be paying USD 300 per App per month. The “App” will give you access to Flow without needing an additional Flow user license as long as the Flow is triggered by the App. For example, on change of a field on abc entity, trigger a Flow, the Flow then does a bunch of stuff using premium connectors…that’s allowed!

Some restrictions will still apply. For example, restricted entities such as the case/incident entity will require a customer service pro/enterprise license. However, restrictions on the number of custom entities, business process flows and complex entities will no longer apply. Please note the difference between restricted entities and complex entities.

PowerApps Portals Framework licensing will change to a per login PLUS per x number of page viewers per month instead of a flat per instance fee. There is a lot more detail around this, e.g. when I say per login it’s per login in a 24-hour period etc etc…

This will be good for customers that have minimal number of external users in OR internal users (internal users are licensed using their existing license) logging in performing operations. It will get very expensive for the rest!

You might be wondering, will the login limit be enforced by not allowing the N+1 user to login once the limit is reached? I don’t have an exact answer but my thinking is that to date Microsoft has not disrupted production systems by enforcing hard limits like that so I doubt they will do it… but never say never!

Flow licensing will change to three options, per User, per Business Process and Seeded. The per user will be USD 15 per user per month with a minimum of 20 users. The per business process will be USD 500 per month for 5 active business processes. Flows will no longer be limited to x number of runs or frequency. You only need a Flow per user license IF your triggering source not Office 365 or the Power Platform. I’m over simplifying it here so wait for the official licensing guide for guidance.

API packs, each license type will have a limit on the number of API calls in a rolling 24-hour period.

Keep an eye out in the coming months for more information about the Power Platform licensing changes. If you have any questions, get in touch with us!